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Home » Andrew C. McCarthy on full disclosure of the whole thing

Andrew C. McCarthy on full disclosure of the whole thing

The New Neo Posted on by

[Hat tip: expat.}

Andrew C. McCarthy writes (and please read the whole thing):

Trump antagonists [are now] clamoring for full disclosure of the special counsel’s final report. Mind you, when skeptics of the Trump-Russia investigation asked what the criminal predicate for it was, and on what basis the Obama administration had decided to monitor the opposition party’s presidential campaign, we were admonished about the wages of disclosure — the compromise of precious defense secrets, of deep-cover intelligence sources and methods. Why, to ask for such information was to be an insurrectionist seeking to destroy the FBI, the Justice Department, and the rule of law itself. Now, though, it’s only the uncharged president of the United States at issue, so disclose away!

Well, if we’re going to have disclosure, fine. But let’s have full disclosure: Mueller’s report in addition to the FISA applications; the memoranda pertinent to the opening and continuation of the investigation; the testimony in secret hearings; the scope memorandum Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein issued on August 2, 2017, after failing to cite a crime when he appointed Mueller — let’s have all of it…

The Justice Department and FBI did not need a special counsel to conduct a counterintelligence investigation of Russia, or a criminal investigation of, say, Michael Flynn or Paul Manafort…The president is not above the law, and if there is evidence that he committed a crime, he should be investigated. But there has to be evidence that he committed a crime.

There wasn’t…

In sum, we have endured a two-year ordeal in which the president of the United States was forced to govern under a cloud of suspicion — suspicion of being a traitor, of scheming with a foreign adversary to steal an election. This happened because the Obama administration — which opened the probe of the Trump campaign, and which opted to use foreign counterintelligence spying powers rather than give Trump a defensive briefing about suspected Russian infiltration of his campaign — methodically forced its suspicions about Trump into the public domain.

It is not just that FISA warrants were sought on the basis of the Steele dossier, an uncorroborated Clinton-campaign opposition-research screed that the Obama Justice Department and FBI well knew was being peddled to the media at the same time. There was a patently premeditated stream of intelligence leaks depicting a corrupt Trump-Russia arrangement.

After Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 election, Obama, after doing virtually nothing about Russian aggression for most of eight years, suddenly made a show of issuing sanctions, seizing Russian assets, and expelling Russian operatives. He then rushed the completion of an intelligence assessment that would ordinarily have taken months to complete, so that it would be issued on his watch; and presto: The public was told not only that Russia interfered in the campaign, but that Russia did so because Putin was trying to get Trump elected…

The intelligence assessment provided Obama’s intelligence agencies with a pretext to brief President-elect Trump on the Steele dossier. That, in turn, gave the media — previously skittish about the dossier’s sensational, unverified allegations — exactly the news hook they needed to publish it. Weeks later, as the FBI continued relying on the unverified Steele dossier in FISA-warrant applications, the FBI director, in public testimony, not only disclosed the existence of a classified counterintelligence investigation but gratuitously added that Trump’s campaign was a subject of the probe and that an assessment would be made of whether any crimes were committed — signaling to the world that Trump was a suspect in what would be, if proved, one of the most heinous crimes in American history. Then, finally, more leaks to the media triggered the appointment of a special counsel in the absence of actual evidence that the president had committed a crime.

You want disclosure? Me too. But let’s see all of it.

If you’re in the habit of sending articles to friends who might not agree with you politically, and if you have any friends open to reading such things, this piece of McCarthy’s might be a good one to send them.

Comments

Andrew C. McCarthy on full disclosure of the whole thing — 25 Comments

  1. Absobloodylutely ! I want it all out there. Classification, which is just ass covering, be damned.

    I want to see Schiff’s memos since he took over the Intel committee and even when he was ranking member. Is there any secret that has not been leaked ? The CIA used a hacked comm system that got all the agents we had in Iran killed. Ditto for China. We might as well have Stimson (“Gentlemen do not read each other’s mail”) running the CIA.

  2. Those who engaged and supported this aborted coup d’etat, US style, should be indicted for treason and if found guilty, should be hanged (just as those hanged who plotted to kill Abe Lincoln).
    And I mean, literally hanged by the neck.
    Schiff and Nadler should also be indicted, for they had access all along to the real facts but repeatedly lied about “solid evidence” of Trump/Russia collusion.

    Yep, one big hanging gallows that will allow for 10 to 20 treasonous pigs to be dropped at the same time.

    OK, I know, this is all wishful thinking.

  3. Woah!
    And let’s not forget….
    Who was paid, and who determined how much?
    What were the “incidental” office expenses?

  4. JohnTyler,

    That’s exactly what needs to happen. And while it probably won’t happen, the failure to insist upon that absolutely just consequence, will lead to far greater and more disastrous consequences.

  5. Really.

    It’s time for a genuine all-out political throw-down.

    Declassify. Let the IG step up and have his say. What about Samantha Power? Susan Rice? And just where is Jeff Sessions’ ridiculous phantom John Huber?

    The desperate Dems and the contemptible MSM (yesterdays whining from Chuck Todd comes to mind) clamor for transparency. Let’s have true transparency.

    Let’s see who the truth sets free.

  6. Why, to ask for such information was to be an insurrectionist seeking to destroy the FBI, the Justice Department, and the rule of law itself. Now, though, it’s only the uncharged president of the United States at issue, so disclose away!

    A comic Johnny Carson invited on his show offered in his routine a suggestion to motorists pulled over by a police officer and posed the question “Do you know how fast you were going”. His suggestion was to look at the officer, give him a coprophageous smile, and say “yeahhhh”.

    We should seek to break the Department of Justice into a half-dozen successor departments, break up the FBI into a half-dozen successor agencies, and scarify the federal criminal code.

    As for Trump, he is an insurrectionist. He’s managed to survive as a politician by breaking all sorts of inane taboos and refusing to abjectly apologise when he did so. That enrages liberals of all stripes. We need a party full of elected officials who break those taboos, and only apologize for genuine delicts, not the phony p’s and q’s liberals dream up. Our political discourse will come closer to genuine dialogue.

  7. I would also like to know about the info Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s Paki friends stole from the DNC and other Dem reps. Who did they sell or give it to–Ruskies? Debbie should be in jail.

  8. John Tyler:

    So true. A small demonstrative blood-letting now ‘to encourage the others’ would head off so much misery later.

    Sadly it ain’t gonna happen.

  9. It won’t matter. Remember, every development in the Mueller investigation for at least the last six months pointed toward this AND there were multiple “the Mueller Report will be a dud” stories in the mainstream media recently…BUT THEY WERE STILL SURPRISED WHEN IT HAPPENED.

    There was never any evidence of collusion. No one was ever even able to explain the conspiracy in any sort of rational, linear manner. This has just been a bout of public hysteria, like the Salem Witch Trials.

    And you know what? I actually would cut the liberals some slack on that. I know how angry and frustrated and depressed I would have been if Hillary had won and can imagine doing really stupid things in response.

    But the conservatives who’ve gone along with this are scum. They’ve been revealed as a bunch of grifters, poseurs, and fools who care about nothing more than their own social status. If Trump literally did nothing else, his election revealing these people for who they are would still make him one of the most positive forces we’ve ever seen in American politics.

    Mike

  10. I favor firing squads, and gladly volunteer. Yes, I would enjoy killing the traitors. However, life in solitary confinement would be more agonizing.

  11. I don’t need the Mueller report to know [President Trump is] a traitor. I have a TV. – Bill Maher

    If Mueller’s team had only watched their TVs, imagine the savings of time and tax dollars. What a waste!

  12. “He then rushed the completion of an intelligence assessment that would ordinarily have taken months to complete, so that it would be issued on his watch”

    That was an early indication that something really fishy was going on when that “intelligence assessment” came out after supposedly only a few weeks investigation. It takes government agencies that long to decide to go to the bathroom.

  13. This answers one question about whether or not “no indictment means innocent” (as I noted on another thread today).

    https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/435408-if-muellers-report-lacks-indictments-collusion-is-a-delusion

    BY JONATHAN TURLEY, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR — 03/23/19 09:30 AM EDT

    There is, however, one thing that stands out — a Zen-like question that contains a deeper answer, such as asking what sound does one hand clapping make. The question left in the wake of the Barr letter is: What does one-person collusion sound like?

    The Justice Department has informed reporters that there will be no further indictments from the Special Counsel. Many people immediately insisted that does not mean anything, since the Justice Department has long maintained a policy that it should not indict a sitting president. However, it could mean a great deal.

    While President Donald Trump could obstruct justice alone, collusion is something that needs at least two people and preferably more. Trump cannot collude with himself. So, if there was a finding of collusion, someone should be indicted even if Trump cannot be while in office. A third party would not be protected by the Justice Department policy. There certainly could be a sealed indictment, but one would expect a number of people would be involved in a collusion between the Trump campaign, the Russians and WikiLeaks to hack the Democratic campaign’s emails and then leak those.

    For two years, I have been a vocal critic of claims that there is collusion and that there are clear crimes likely to be alleged as a result of such a conspiracy. It just did not seem to track.
    …
    When the Russian hacking-and-trolling internet operation was the subject of a lengthy indictment, the Justice Department expressly said that any contacts with the Trump campaign were done “unwittingly.” The only question was whether Mueller was holding all of the evidence — every little bit — for a grand finish, as in an Agatha Christie novel.

    Now, however, the biggest clue may have been dropped by omission.

    Trump has shown that he can do a lot of damage alone. He can tweet alone and speak alone. He can even obstruct alone. The one thing he cannot do alone is collude. As defined by Webster’s dictionary, collusion is a “secret agreement or cooperation especially for an illegal or deceitful purpose” among multiple people.

    There is no immaculate collusion.

  14. Let’s see – what happened the last time a lot of people were convinced they had been “stabbed in the back” because the actual situation had been withheld from them by the press (imposed by the government in that case, but no analogy is perfect) —

    https://www.foxnews.com/politics/confident-trump-and-anxious-washington-wait-for-ag-barrs-report-on-muellers-key-findings

    “Replying to @ggreenwald
    You can’t blame MSNBC viewers for being confused. They largely kept dissenters from their Trump/Russia spy tale off the air for 2 years. As recently as 2 weeks ago, they had @JohnBrennan strongly suggesting Mueller would indict Trump family members on collusion as his last act:”

    Laundry list here:
    https://dailycaller.com/2019/03/23/many-claimed-mueller-closing-in-report/

    * * *
    The “Climate Change is going to kill us all eleventy” people are going to have the same problem when the world doesn’t end in 2031.

  15. after failing to cite a crime when he appointed Mueller — let’s have all of it…

    The regulation in question did not require that Rosenstein “cite a crime”.

    Read it for yourself:

    § 600.1 Grounds for appointing a Special Counsel.

    The Attorney General, or in cases in which the Attorney General is recused, the Acting Attorney General, will appoint a Special Counsel when he or she determines that criminal investigation of a person or matter is warranted and –

    It only requires him to determine if a “criminal investigation of a person or matter is warranted.” That’s different.

  16. I believe the definition of

    “…warranted…”

    is the key here.

    Does “warranted” mean suspicion of a specific crime having been committed?

    Or does it mean suspicion of any (open-ended) crime having been committed?

    If the former, then what is that specific crime? Name it. Spell it out. And then commence the investigation accordingly. (In McCarthy’s words: “But there has to be evidence that he committed a crime.”)

    Conversely, if that specific crime CANNOT be determined, then is an investigation “warranted”? McCarthy, and others, would say NO.

    (Once again: What is the definition—the meaning—of “warranted” in this case?)

    If I understand this correctly, then what McCarthy is claiming (and has been claiming all along, together with others—e.g.,
    https://www.aspentimes.com/opinion/letters-to-the-editor/poor-form-in-mueller-investigation/ )…
    …is, that the “crime” DID NOT exist (i.e., could not be named).

    What this meant for the Democrats is that a “crime” had to be created out of the existence of a counter-intelligence investigation. Think of it as: “In the beginning was the C-I investigation…and the C-I investigation became ‘crime’….”.

    IOW the “mere” fact that there was no crime was overridden by the Obama WH/DOJ creating the environment where it was “determined” that there WERE “grounds” to conduct a counter-intelligence investigation—an “as-if” crime—against the president. (Bogus grounds to be sure—the phony Steele dossier being manipulated so as to persuade/convince (rather, “suborn”) the FISA judges to get the ball rolling officially—but “grounds” nonetheless).

    Once again: the purpose of that counter-intelligence investigation was being touted as (i.e., purposely confused with) a crime. As THE crime. As Trump’s crime. (All this together with the strategic use of leaks to an avid, rabid MSM, which in turn magnified to the nth degree—aka “lied about”—the extraordinarily serious nature of “the crime”, with the intention of establishing Trump’s “guilt” beyond the shadow of a doubt.)

    Clever, ain’t it!

    The entire—ingenious—Obaman effort was to muddy the waters by using the trick of mixing what ought to be, so to speak, immiscible liquids.

    Water and oil DON’T mix.
    A counter-intelligence investigation is NOT a criminal investigation.

    Thus, while a Special Investigator (Mueller) could/should have been appointed to investigate a specific crime, it was totally improper for him to lead a counter-intelligence investigation.

    Which is why it was so necessary to make the public believe that there was a crime even when there wasn’t.

    To get back to that oh-so-critical counter-intelligence investigation: it was based on a dossier that—guess what!—turned out to be entirely manufactured.

    100% bogus.

    And manufactured, no less, by a company employed by Hillary Clinton (via cut-outs).

    Not bad, actually! (And to think, we could have had her as our President! Talk about missed opportunities….)

    The MSM did yeoman work in ensuring that the bogus nature of the counter-intelligence “narrative” manufactured by the Obama administration remained totally hidden. Out of sight.

    And those stalwarts continue to do yeoman work in ensuring, to the best of their ability, that it REMAINS out of sight.

  17. The regulation in question did not require that Rosenstein “cite a crime”.

    If a criminal investigation is ‘warranted’, there is a crime to investigate or a suspected crime.

    Read McCarthy’s other articles on this point. The FBI opened a counter-intelligence investigation. Rosenstein’s commission to Mueller pretended, contrary to law, that a criminal investigation could be conducted with the predicate used to establish a counter-intelligence investigation. Mueller’s office also went so far as to attempt to deny Judge Ellis a copy of the memorandum establishing the scope of Mueller’s investigation.

    McCarthy makes clear: the whole think was hinky from the get-go.

    (Btw. McCarthy was of the NeverTrumper persuasion in 2016; unlike David French, Patrick Frey and the Bulwark crew, he isn’t a fanatic about it).

  18. Barry Meislin:

    Just one other thing for Manju and his grounds for the Special Prosecutor;

    “Manju, bless your heart, you are a precious child of God. Not of a precious child of allah, they aren’t the same.” The orange wig, round rubber nose, and enormous shoes are his alone. They say on the internet no one knows you’re a dog, it doesn’t say everyone knows you aren’t a clown.

  21. It only requires him to determine if a “criminal investigation of a person or matter is warranted.” That’s different.

    It is ? Why would you do a “criminal investigation” if a crime was not of concern?

    I guess we need to update the definition of “virgin” for you lefties.

  22. “It only requires him to determine if a “criminal investigation of a person or matter is warranted.” That’s different.”

    The question (not answered by the bare terms of this section of the statute) is whether or not a criminal investigation is “warranted” without the identification of facts which lead to the suspicion that a specific crime(s) has been committed. There must be other authority and precedent that fleshes this out what this term means within the context of the statute but I have no idea how to research that right now. Generally speaking, a prosecutor isn’t supposed to target someone because they don’t like them and fish around to find some crime–any crime. So my educated guess is that the term “warranted” is supposed to require pre-existing facts that raise a reasonable suspicion that a particular crime has been committed.
    Here’s an important point: Statutes must be read in their entirety. The statute states that special counsel is only to be appointed when a criminal investigation is warranted AND that there would be a conflict of interest for the (entire) Justice Department that prevents their involvement. Now, as ACM notes, how can you establish that there is this momentous conflict of interest without reference to the facts establishing a crime? A fact-free, open-ended investigation by definition doesn’t identify the parties and the behavior that would allegedly be in conflict.

  23. Generally speaking, a prosecutor isn’t supposed to target someone because they don’t like them and fish around to find some crime–any crime.

    You’re talking to a partisan Democrat. As far as he’s concerned, that’s totes OK so long as the target isn’t one of his peeps.

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